FIRST SCHOOL IN ARKANSAS...

RAVENDEN SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) Almost 200 years ago, children trekked through the woods into a dark canyon in the easternmost reaches of the Ozark Mountains. They did this regularly for years, assembling in a cave to learn.
Thought to be the first school in Arkansas, the cave served early settlers and those who followed them through much of the 19th century.
Baptist minister Caleb Lindsey started the school in 1817, presumably teaching children Bible lessons, along with reading, writing and arithmetic.
Bill Carroll, Mr. Lindsey's great-great-great nephew, said little is known about the school curricula or what lengths the teacher and students went to in the name of education.
But Mr. Carroll, 61, remembers his great-grandmother telling him of going to school in a nearby community.
"More than once bears and panthers chased her pony on her way to school, so these kids must have really wanted an education," he said. "As for why a cave, well, it's just about the right size for a small classroom. You know caves are pretty much the same temperature all year. If you have a kerosene lamp in there, it will both light and heat it."
The School Cave, as Mr. Carroll calls it in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, was operating for nearly two decades before Arkansas became a state in 1836. The region was part of the Missouri Territory then.
Over the years, the cave entrance, about 12 feet high by 15 feet wide, was modified slightly. An old photograph shows the cave with a wooden facade; locals proudly stand in front of the school. Today, a concrete wall, probably built in the 1940s, keeps out visitors who must travel over terrain slightly more accessible but still rugged. On the wall, someone has written a "footnote" in red paint - "the first school in Arkansas ... see Dalton's History of Randolph County page 43."
The cave and the canyon are fixtures in the memories of those who grew up in Randolph County. The springs - there are five - were once thought to have curative powers. Mr. Carroll can tick them off - the Stomach Spring, the Eye Spring, the Heart Spring, the Arthritis Spring and the Kidney Spring.
After Methodist minister William Bailey founded the town in 1880, it flourished as a spa and summer resort until the Depression Era.
Today, the springs, the canyon and the School Cave are part of private property and not open to the public. Mr. Carroll and the Randolph County Tourism Association are hoping the out-of-state owner will work with them to preserve the property, possibly as an Arkansas heritage park.